PPS graduation rate dips to 82.5% for Class of 2025; postsecondary readiness edges up to 71.7%

District accountability leaders presented Class of 2025 outcomes to the board on Feb. 24, reporting a four-year cohort graduation rate of 82.5%, a 1.4-percentage-point decline from 2024 and the third consecutive year of decline. Renard Adams, the district's chief accountability and equity officer, said the metric is calculated using ninth-grade cohorts and cautioned that cohort accounting is more complex than a simple numerator/denominator calculation.

Adams and the academic team highlighted subgroup patterns: students with disabilities showed notable improvement (approaching 72% graduation rate), while declines among some racial and ethnic groups and English-language learners drove the overall drop. Staff emphasized that "time in the system" matters: students continuously enrolled in PPS high schools for four years have a much higher on-time graduation rate (about 96%) than students who transfer in later.

On postsecondary readiness, the district reported an increase to 71.7% of graduates demonstrating readiness through a variety of measures (AP/IB, dual-credit, successful completion of CTE pathways, Seal of Biliteracy, or benchmark scores on PSAT/SAT/ACT). Adams said nearly every racial and ethnic subgroup improved on postsecondary readiness metrics except Pacific Islander students whose measures remained flat.

Staff proposed "Project Graduation," a combined short- and long-term intervention that would coordinate targeted supports across central office and high school leadership, focus on ninth-grade on-track strategies, credit recovery, data systems, and sharing of best practices across campuses. Directors asked for additional breakdowns by school and subgroup, CTE participation analyses, and DLI program correlations; staff agreed to provide requested cross-tabulations and to share dashboards that permit further analysis.

Board members pressed on data quality and the effects of transfer students, and staff acknowledged some data-processing challenges this cycle related to central-office staffing changes; they said they will reconcile files and share school-level subgroup data on request.